What first drew you to employee benefits and global mobility, and how has your career led you to your current role leading Aon’s Global Benefits business?

I have been fortunate to work across the entire Aon business in the last 15 years and to have been given the opportunity to take on new challenges, from leading Aon’s industry strategy, and building out Aon’s client enterprise model and team, among wider commercial and leadership roles. I have been fortunate to have had UK, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) wide, and now global, roles at Aon, so I appreciate the cultural nuances and buying behaviours globally.

The opportunity to bring together worldwide our Global Benefits and International Wealth businesses, at a time where greater global oversight and governance is more important than ever, was something I could not resist – and it brought me back to where I started my career in the health and benefits and retirement arena.

How does the Global Benefits team fit within Aon’s wider ecosystem, and what sets Aon’s approach apart in this space?

Global Benefits fits within our Human Capital business, which incorporates our wealth, talent, and domestic health and benefit businesses. We believe strongly in the human capital narrative and in helping organisations both globally and locally to figure out where they best deploy their employee spend and how they articulate a differentiated employee value proposition to gain a competitive advantage. What sets Aon apart in this space is really our One Connected model, combining intelligent technology, strategic advisory and global broking strength. This is really what helps us unlock the full value of employee benefits for our clients.

‎ We have seen the convergence of global mobility and employee health benefits as a ‎significant trend over the past few years

What insights have you gained into the convergence of global mobility and employee health benefits, especially as workforces become more international and remote?

We have seen the convergence of global mobility and employee health benefits as a significant trend over the past few years. This is especially true post-pandemic, with organisations increasingly operating across borders and employees stating that flexible working is a key attraction tool (second most important after pay and benefits in North America and EMEA, according to our Employee Sentiment Study). This has raised several interesting challenges for our clients, such as:

1. The need for multinationals to have a more centralised model to drive better global governance, compliance (with employee mobility making compliance even more difficult to manage), and benefit consistency to ensure a uniform employee experience.
2. An increasingly mobile and global employee workforce also potentially means higher costs and fragmented solutions. With medical inflation rising at double-digit percentages, multinationals are looking for ways to optimise their expenditure on employee benefits. We have seen more organisations review how they are financing their employee benefit spend.
3. Finally, as the workforce disperses, the need to ensure equitable access to benefits and to support the wellbeing of employees becomes increasing important, especially as remote work can cause isolation and challenge individual resilience. Global programmes such as employee assistance programmes (EAPs), mental health support, or simply ensuring consistent access to high-quality health providers around the world, can really make a difference.

How is the relationship between corporate health and travel insurance evolving, and are clients placing greater emphasis on duty of care and employee wellbeing when designing benefits programmes?

There is a definitive drive around employee wellbeing and understanding the benefits incorporated within the corporate health and travel benefits. There are many additional benefits within these two offerings that complement global wellbeing offerings, such as telehealth, EAPs, and health and fitness apps.

Regarding the relationship between travel and health insurance, while, at their core, they are designed for different populations, there is a crossover in the benefits offered. A client looking at a budget could potentially look to a travel insurance to provide a base offering for mobile employees.

How is Aon leveraging technology, data, and analytics to support clients as the travel insurance industry integrates more closely with broader benefits solutions?

Aon is leveraging its US$1 billion investment back into the firm to develop even greater data-led insights for our clients. In Global Benefits specifically, we have created a unique integrated data structure and analytics tools to help clients understand their market positioning, manage high-cost claims, proactively manage their global insurance portfolio, and anticipate where future costs and volatility may arise. We are continually evolving our data and analytical capabilities to support the ever-evolving needs of our clients and create tangible value. We are also leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to help with document and data intake and AI chatbots to transform how our clients interact, query, and experience our analyser tools.

Which emerging trends or risks, from economic uncertainty to climate change, will most influence the benefits and travel insurance sectors over the next five years?

Aon is very focused on the four mega trends, namely trade, technology, weather, and workforce. These mega trends will all impact benefits and the travel insurance sector over the next five years:

• Trade: ongoing economic volatility and geopolitical tensions might create abrupt moves between countries, change travel patterns, and bring additional cost pressure on carriers and multinational organisations.
• Technology: digital transformation continues to accelerate benefit administration and employee experience at rapid pace but also raises new concerns for insurers around the ethical use of data, data governance, and managing cyber threats.
• Weather: the frequency and intensity of natural disasters have increased due to climate change; this has meant more travel disruption and evacuation due to extreme weather events, increasing claims costs, and requiring the review of travel insurance terms and conditions. Climate also has an impact on the physical health of individuals, with high heat, air quality, and infectious disease outbreaks impacting both the productivity and health of the workforce. From a benefits perspective, employers need to ask themselves how they further protect and support their employees, and whether new employee benefits should emerge (e.g. access to home insurance including natural disaster coverage, review evacuation, and repatriation benefits, etc).
• Workforce: the workforce is becoming more diverse and mobile with significant shifts due to an ageing population and low fertility rates. Employers will need to consider benefits that can be tailored for a multi-generational, cross-border population, and support the long-term wellbeing of their people from a physical, emotional, and financial wellbeing perspective.

We have noted that changing legislation in the US may be changing the direction of mobile employees in the future. We have already seen a shift towards Asia in our latest International People Mobility survey (N.B. although we did have more Asia-Pacific (APAC) clients respond this year), so we will continue to monitor this in the future.

There is a definitive drive around employee wellbeing and understanding the benefits ‎incorporated within the corporate health and travel benefits ‎

How is Aon helping clients embed sustainability and resilience into their benefits and insurance programmes, particularly for globally mobile employees?

Aon is continually reviewing its overall offering for mobile employees to ensure that they have access to benefits wherever they are based. It can be difficult for global employees to benefit from their home or host plans due to communication strategies which may focus on local employees. The host plan could be culturally different, and the home plan may not be accessible, therefore including a range of benefits for either global or mobile populations is key.

We are seeing increased need for virtual access to benefits to ensure consistency of provision and multilingual/culturally appropriate cover both for mental and physical support.

What excites you most about the future of global benefits and travel insurance, and what advice would you offer to industry peers navigating these changes?

We have made great progress in the last 18 months but what excites me most is the pace of change, and how Aon is reacting to that change through agile technology development, use of AI and our analytics tools, which are all focused on supporting our clients while they navigate these mega trends. We know that, ultimately, the difference is who delivers it – so we are also very focused on delivering the core brilliantly and being a strategic and trusted partner for our clients.